Public Comment

When I first read about the proposal envisioning a concert venue and amusement park with concessions at Cesar Chavez Park I thought someone had far outstripped my talents as a satirist and cartoonist. This is the same city council which had recently signed off the Cesar Chavez Park Conservancy group's Chancellor's Grant supporting native plants, pollinator gardens, and the restoration of the Design Advocates Working with Nature (DAWN) group's efforts of thirty years ago -- right in the area where they want to put a zip line. I'm one of the people working hard doing volunteer planting, weeding, and watering the restoration plants.

The park workers are are clear-headed as we are about the necessity of stepping up to make sure we seed and plant ahead of climate change to nurture native plants in this changing era, and the network of volunteers and supportive community members are not a group looking for a nifty new concert venue. They know that our natural world is quite literally under fire, and that we hope to carefully restore and if possible expand the respite that all species require to heal and grow in natural settings. 

Hello? Is there anybody at City Hall awake? Have the numbing Zoom meetings finally taken their toll so that no one knows or cares if there's continuity or clarity in our response to environmental crisis or parks? Does a town over-saturated with under-filled venues need an over-amped commercial venue competing with them right literally feet from a nature preserve where not only people who need respite from city noise and pressures but wildlife are struggling for habitat? 

Please don't confuse the very real needs at the marina with this bizarre common sense-free Disneyfication of our most beautiful city park. Monetization of our parks is not the answer to your overspending on merchant association stationary.